Multi-panel comic narratives

in Australian First World War

trench publications as citizen
journalism
Jane Chapman and Daniel Ellin
ABSTRACT: Although textual expressions by soldiers in their own trench and
troopship newspapers are relatively well known, the way that the men created
and used cartoon multi-panel format is not. Humorous visual self-expression has
provided a record of satirical social observation from a bottom up perspective.
The contribution made by illustrative narratives of the armed forces needs to be
acknowledged as early citizen journalism. Comic art by servicemenmainly from
the lower rankshas contributed to the evolution of democratic self-expression in
popular culture, and manifests aspects of collective First World War experience that
can be construed as a form of journalistic observation. Soldiers universal concerns
about daily life, complaints and feelings about officers, medical services, discomforts,
food and drink, leave, military routines, and their expectations versus emerging
reality are emphasised. In this paper, we argue that perceptions of Australian identity
can also be discerned in the detailed interaction between drawings, dialogue, and/
or text that is unique to this early comic-strip form.

Self-publication and the illustrative

Jane Chapman, Lincoln

University, United Kingdom.
Daniel Ellin, Warwick
University, United Kingdom.

At a time when scholars are addressing the

reasons why independent, citizen journalism has
faltered in the context of an extension of media
conglomerates hegemony under deregulated
global capitalism (Curran, 2012), it may be
timely to offer an expanded definition of the ways
in which citizen journalism can be historicised.
Whereas todays protagonists turn to their
mobile telephones for visual communication,
it is easy to forget that, during the golden age
of the press in the early 20th century, comicstrip illustrations acted as a comparable tool
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

for observation and comment. This ephemeral medium tells us what

ordinary soldiers were thinking and how they livedon a regular basis
and at the timenot afterwards or through rose-tinted spectacles, as
memoirs do1. Previously, the voice of the ordinary soldier was mainly
articulated in a literary form by the better educated among them, as
letters, diaries, and memoirs. This paper argues that the uniqueness of
these sequential narratives is, as a form of democratic self-expression,
all the more important because the stories demonstrate spontaneity
and immediacynot as news items, but as ways of interpreting
everyday experiences and feelings.
From June 1915 onwards, more than 250 Australian publications
circulated among troops, starting first at Gallipoli. This large volume of
material is significant2 because it represents an increase in the number
of participant voices in an accessible published form. Although some
troop publications were officially supported, many were produced,
written, and conceived entirely by the soldiers themselves, and mainly
by the lower ranks for their peersthat is, by, with, and for, citizen
soldiers. Indicating the range of participation, Australian publications
included parodies of news stories and of advertisements, snippets of
gossip (furphiessee later), jokes, poetry, anecdotes, and cartoons, as
well as sequential illustrative narratives. Single panel cartoons have not
been included in this study because the aim is to explore contributions
made by multi-panel visual observationsequential narrativesas a
neglected popular medium. This article explores how the interaction
between pictorial and textual elements in this form of communication
makes a distinct contribution as an early form of citizen journalism.
The most famous Australian soldier-artist at the time, David Barker,
based his work on notes provided by the soldiers. Statistics on
participation in the war indicate that 40% of all Australian men
between the ages of 18 and 45 enlisted voluntarily (Seal, 2004, p. 176)
and only 5% were professional, compared to 22% who were labourers,
20% who were industrial workers, and 17% who were primary
industry workers (Seal, 2004, p. 173). Trench publications gave the
non-commissioned volunteer the opportunity to make his views
known; furthermore, ordinary soldiers were starting to appropriate a
new genre of publishingcomic-strip panels for adults. Yet, academic
study has focused only on texts, not early comics formats3 (Fuller,
1990; Kent, 1985, 1999; Seal, 1990, 2005).
What motivated active servicemen with drawing talent to use their
free time to produce illustrative narratives? The main purpose of all
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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newspapers was to amuse: satire and irony represented an ideal vehicle

for recording the human side of the Great War. Men wanted to share
stories about living conditions by addressing participants in similar
circumstances on topics of daily life. In addition, feelings of geographic
isolation prompted them to produce a record for friends and family
back home. Comic-strip panels appeared in newspapers, manifesting
a perceived editorial motive to unify the ranksa collective purpose:
They represent a collective rather than an individual commentary,
validated to a large extent by their soldier audience. In addition,
they deliberately set out, in many cases, to capture the spirit of
the army. They address themselves directly and continuously
to a task which letters and diaries tackle only peripherally
and randomly. Even without this purpose, the journals were
themselves an expression of the collective culture. (Fuller,
1990, p. 4)
We will explore the nature of this collective culture in a content analysis
later in this paper.
Clearly, newspapers at the time would not have survived if they
had not published content that was more acceptable to their main
readership of the lower ranks in a largely volunteer citizens force. As
Kent points out:
In a sense the field publications became the corporate diaries
of tens of thousands of servicemen. These publications allowed
them to recall and share experiences among themselves while
also, in many cases, transmitting that experience to the people
at home. (Kent, 1999, p. 8)
Recruits, by definition, had positioned themselves for the first time in
a new community that needed to express an identity, and they used
collective communication to create cohesion. Scholars have recognised
that journalism has traditionally also provided a service to, by, and for
imagined communities (Allan & Thorsen, 2009; Anderson, 1991;
Chapman & Nuttall, 2011) but, to date, citizen journalism has not
generally been historicised. It is usually defined as a non-professional
exercise of the craft, with scholars who write on the present day
phenomenon stressing the range of platforms and manifestations
of community journalism (Reader & Hatcher, 2012), but often
overlooking precedents such as trench publications.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

Precedents for adult comic strips

It should be stressed that the comic-strip genre as it appears in trench
publications was not usually formalised by symmetric panel framing
and regular characters in the way that later became commonplace.
Text captions and balloon dialogue were more frequent than box
borders. There were already some precedents in Australian publications
for comic strips aimed at adults, as opposed to the main market of
imported British comic magazines such as Puck, Chuckles, Butterfly,
Funny Wonder, and Sparks for the childrens market. The latter was
already well-established prior to the First World War during this golden
age of English comics (Perry & Aldridge, 1975, p. 50). For adults,
The International Socialist, a Sydney based weekly, had a strip with a
main character on its front pageThe Adventures of William Mug
from July 1913 to September 1914. The first Australian newspaper
strips to reach a mass audience were by childrens author May Gibbs
in the Perth Western Mail from 1913, with panels, text, and speech
balloons, but with content based on subject themes rather than central
characters (Ryan, 1979, p. 13). In troop publications, the central comic
character was the citizen soldiera volunteer in the lower ranks.
Called Anzac in Gallipoli, Billjim in Egypt and Palestine, this was the
ordinary soldier, the everyman as main actor, portrayed as a source of
entertainment and morale boosting.

Context of trench publications

It took a while for print communications to be launched at Gallipoli,
most likely attributable to the fact that conditions for production were
among the worst of any theatre of war in terms of danger and difficulty.
Nine Australasian titles were eventually created (although there may
have been moreones that did not survive). Official publications
such as The Peninsular Press prompted unofficial pastiche reactions,
exemplified by the Dardanelles Driveller. Dinkum Oil (handwritten
and reproduced by stencil) is the best known trench publication at
Gallipoli, mainly because of the involvement of C.E.W. Bean. His diaries
record this and he gave the paper a footnote in his post-War official
history4. The title Dinkum Oil meant reliable information in army slang
(or slanguage) (Kent, 1999, p. 119; Laugesen, 2005), ironic given
the fact that the section entitled War News consisted of outrageous,
totally unbelievable snippets of water cooler gossip. In diggerese
slanguage these were furphies, named after John Furphy, who
supplied water carts around which men congregated to chat.
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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By the latter part of the war there was a widely held conviction among
troops in the Near East that their contribution as a successful army had
been overlooked and neglected by comparison with the high profile
Western Front and the fast-growing Anzac legend that was being
fuelled by the popular press in both Britain and Australasia. There were
12 Australian publications produced in Egypt and Palestine. The most
sophisticated were the Cacolet, journal of the Camel Field Ambulance,
and the Kia Ora Coo-ee. The latter sold 13,000 per month. Kia Ora
is Maori for hello and good health, and Coo-ee is a bush call. The
launch of Kia Ora Coo-ee in March 1918 reflected the troops desire to
communicate the prevailing optimism and their success to the folks
back home.
Conditions in Egypt and Palestine were more conducive to the
production of journals than Gallipoli. Kent has emphasised that Kia Ora
Coo-ee had various advantages: it was a magazine for all Antipodeans
in these countries, and was not limited to a particular regiment or unit
(Kent, 1999, pp. 57, 66). Furthermore, the official status of the journal
ensured that regular editions were produced from a permanent base
in Cairo, drawing on a pool of former professional journalists, with
access to good printing facilities. The journal also benefitted from the
creative skills of noted artists such as Otho Hewett and G. W. Lambert
for covers, and Private David Barker of the 5th Field Ambulance for
cartoons and comic strips based on ideas sent in by troops. As with
other official and semi-official journals, Kia Ora Coo-ee had a system of
subscription (deduction from mens pay packets) and mail order for
sending abroad.

Citizen journalism as commemoration

There are 70 surviving troop ship newspapers (Kent, 1999, p. 11).
Every boat had one, but the bright, breezy and colloquial style (Seal,
1990, p. 30) became the choice for those commemorative editions
produced on return journeys because these were often republished as
souvenir collections. For instance, Cecil Hartts cartoons were sold in
England and specifically aimed at a market of servicemen who collected
memorabilia; equally, cartoons and illustrative sequential narratives
were reproduced in the Aussie and passed around within battalions
of the Australian Imperial ForceAIF (Wise, 2007, p. 236). By and
large, there were more and better produced sequential cartoons in
newspapers with greater resources, such as the Aussie.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

The most famous and successful publication produced for

commemorative purposes is The Anzac Book. The volume was an
instant bestseller with 36,000 pre-sales from the First Anzac Division,
53,000 orders from the AIF by November 1915, and total sales of
104,432 as early as September 1916 (Kent, 1985, pp. 388, 390).
Originally, it was intended as a distraction and as a morale booster over
Christmas in Gallipoli, a trench publication with its material generated
by a competition. Out of the 150 competition entries, 24 people
offered sketches, paintings, and cartoons, some of them multi-panel.
When the decision to withdraw came, the intended audience for this
body of work changed to the folks back home. Although it contained
no news items, The Anzac Book consisted of journalistic observations in
various forms.
Editor Charles Bean, who has been attributed with inventing the Anzac
legend (much of which was initially promoted by English journalist
Ellis Ashmead Bartlett5), was selective about the image he wanted to
create6. Of course, the digger ideal, although not the word itself, had
a longer history, rooted in the bush and rural economy, but Gallipoli
provided attribution: the ready-made myth was given a name, a
time, and a place (White, 1981, p. 128). Cartoon and multi-panel
images tend to project a self-mocking humour by their depictions of
the unkempt larrikin, rather than the rural ideal. Both were part of
the legend (White, p. 136): the self-image was one of both saint and
sinner.
Illustrative narratives also demonstrate irony, depicting situations where
endurance was tolerated with good humour, danger was nonchalantly
accepted, along with stoicism about the potential outcome, and
loyalty to Britain was showedthese ironies were enhanced in
importance by virtue of Beans editorial selectivity. Seal (2005) sums
up the significance of the contributions to the heritage of the Anzac
legend, mainly made by the lower ranks, and submitted to The Anzac
Book: These Works, scribbled and sketched by the guttering light of
a candle, probably in a possie somewhere along the frozen line,
display that spirit of irreverence, stoic humour and casual bravery that
we associate with the digger (p. 61). He does not elaborate on the role
of illustrative iconography, although this is central to early comic-strip
and two-panel cartoon humour (analysed later in this paper).
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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Humour
Humour provided a caricature of situations by showing and not simply
telling. Implied criticism and visual exaggeration provided just the
right balance for the active servicemans desire to ensure that people
elsewhere understood the reality of his hardship while maintaining the
spirit of cheerfulness and bonhomie that kept him going. Humorous
correction served as a vent for grievances, but as officers often turned
a blind eye to criticism of them in publications, the authors were less
vulnerable to punishment. Sometimes the blind eye was not optional
if complaints were anonymous. However, trench publications could
offer a sounding-board in the uncertainties of front-line or near
front-line existence (Seal, 1990, p. 30) and alert officers to potential
discontents. Humour held the potential to undermine the power of
officers and to reassert the masculine independence of the rank-andfile soldier, [and] to maintain the digger identity (Wise, 2007, p.
241). As a communications vehicle, the comic-strip format proved
ideal for snapshot stories revealing absurdities through the interaction
of dialogue, captions, and drawings.
In the Australian case, scholars have seen the soldiers publishing
effort as evidence of a distinctive digger sub-culture, characterised
among other ways by its language, its projection of an image of casual
attitudes to authority, its matter-of-fact laconic humour (Seal, 1990, p.
30). Certainly, print culture reflected oral traditions, and newspapers
responded to their readerships by providing forums in which a variety
of digger expressions could be articulated and broadcast further
than by word of mouth (Seal, p. 30). This represented an attempt
to crystallize aspects of talk and belief (or disbelief) into a slightly
more formal mode (Seal, p. 32), based on an obsession with gossip
and rumours (or furphies), around which informal communication
networks at Gallipoli were based. Examples of these will be analysed
later in this paper.

Trans-national approaches and continuities

Illustrations were based on content themes that were common to all
theatres of conflict, and by no means relevant only to Australians. Fuller
(1990) selected 107 illustrations for study from Britain and the many
Dominions, concentrating on 61 that were uniquely produced by, and
aimed at, the infantry. The French had 400 trench publications, but
only 200 have survived (Audoin-Rouzeau, 1968, p. 7).
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

Most of the complaints about officers, commonly expressed through

humour, seem to be shared across the various nationalities of the Allied
side. Attempts to differentiate between Tommy and Digger aspects
tend to focus on class. Although class differences clearly existed within
the AIF, they were more pronounced in England (Fuller, 1990, p. 51),
with the result that British soldiers were surprised by the relationship
between Australian officers and lower ranks, considering their use of
humour to protest against officers and their behaviour unconscionable
(Wise, 2007, p. 238).
While not disputing the pivotal nature of communications dating from
this era as evidence of digger identity, shared characteristics must
be stressed: repetition of themes such as bad food, the mismatch
between the reality of wartime life and the image held by the folks
back home, cultural difference of local populations in battlefield
countries, perceptions of officer weaknesses, and other aspects, such
as discomforts, are common. On the Western Front, British, Dominion,
and French troops faced the same enemies: lice, rats, mud, cold,
rain, and shells. These were much the same at Gallipoli in winter. In
summer, the inordinate heat added flies to the list. However, in comicstrip panels, Australian identity can be clearly discerned in colloquial
language through dialogue and text captions, and in visuals through
uniform and image. Close attention to detail is required to identify
differences in nationality such as the use of specific slang (cobbers,
dinkum, bonzer) in dialogue and text, and the dress style of the
uniforms7. In some cases, the same themes appear in later wars.
Bedbugs, a serious subject for comic-strip stories, were depicted amid
the humidity and cruelty of Japanese-occupied Singapore, in Changi
jail by a POW in 1942 (NLS: 95713). For Australian readers during the
First World War, bedbugs featured as a front-cover six-panel comic
for a special edition of The Yandoo, Chatty Number: Printed in a Fritz
Dugout (AWM: folder 5, vol.3, part 4, 1 September, 1917).

Thematic data analysis

As the scope of topics was so wide ranging, examples have been
grouped according to format rather than content: two-panel and multipanel. Both categories included observations (sometimes satirical) of a
shared experience, but the level of explicit narrative sophistication
varied.
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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Two-panel contrasts

The Ideal and The Real (Anzac Book, AWM: MSS1316/ ART00021.003)

The two-panel cartoon can be construed as a precursor to the comicstrip format: binaries can indicate change over a period of time that
involves an element of contrast in presentation. Themes embrace
before and after, or at first then later as a narrative. This style
of presentation is ideal for depicting a quick snapshot of change,
immediately recognisable because of the brief nature of the summary.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

For example, two close-up head-and-shoulder drawings in the Anzac

Book (AWM: ART00021.004) show a well-dressed businessman sporting
a bowler hat, monocle, bow tie, and coat with fur collar in the top
panel, and in the bottom panel a down-to-earth soldier, with slouch
hat, buttoned uniform, and pipe. A caption at the top states its not
what you were and the one at the bottom adds, but what you are
today. A variation on this theme appeared on the front page of the
first edition of Dinkum Oil in 1915 as Bomb Throwers (AWM: folder
73). The panel first shows a scruffy anarchist with a beard, old hat, and
a tired-looking checked coat, carrying a hand grenade. The caption
reads old style. The second panel shows a smart soldier in exactly
the same pose, also carrying a grenade. The caption reads new style.
Some who fought on the Western Front spent leave in England, an
experience that was often recorded in illustrations. Cecil Hartt (VA
608.AA.0196) presented the arrival of two new recruits dressed in the
iconic slouch hat, cigarettes in mouths, cruising happily and in style
in the back of a taxi on their first day. His second panel encapsulates
an implied but untold story, and is entitled last day. The same two
men sit dejected, heads in hands, on the curbside: clearly theyve run
out of money. Another contrast that 7th F.A.B. Yandoo (AWM: folder 8,
volume 2, p. 38) noted in its volume entitled Camp life in England
was the weather at Christmas. A drawing entitled PastChristmas
Present! shows, on the left-hand side, the season in Australia, with a
man in an all-in-one bathing suit reclining with reading matter on the
beach, sun in sky, sea, and seagulls. On the right-hand side is Europe
with the same man holding a rifle, standing dejected in pouring rain,
and sporting a long raincoat and army hat.
When men arrived at the front, a further contrast with their stay in
England became obvious. An anonymous artist addresses how we do
it in Blighty with a picture of opulence: two soldiers are served food
and drink on platters by a waiter in elegant, stately surroundings
pictures on the wall, marble columns, and mansion dcor. The second
panel carries a simple title and in France. The setting is depressingly
desolate and shows some of the discomforts of life on the Western
Front. Standing outside a sandbagged shelter with an (ironic)
Australian Comforts Fund sign on the roof, men are enduring the
mud and the cold in a waterlogged and shell-ravaged landscape (CUL:
Aussie, WRL464 reel 15, 1918).
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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Xmas Day in Gallipoli. The top panel is what we hope for and the
bottom what well probably getrejected for publication in The Anzac
Book (AWM: RCO02954).

For the Canadian Field Ambulance, the contrast depicted by Sergeant

T. W. Whitefoot in Now and Then was the Fiction of fast, efficient
stretcher bearers in a clear battlefield tending one or two wounded
men, whereas Fact involved carrying a heavy soldier on a stretcher
through knee-high mud to a derelict-looking medical post, sweating,
with a speech caption that says censored (CUL: WRA540, reel 1,
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

11

1918). In fact, censorship was surprisingly liberal for most trench

publications (Fuller, 1990, p. 19). Again on the Western Front, the
reality for a Ne Fait Rien involved what we thought this town would
be like underneath a picture of a happy Australian soldier with
two pretty women, one on each arm, contrasted to what we got:
torrential rain and a long raincoat, the soldier walking alone.
The story of a night out in town, featured as a front page of Yandoo
with a heading Issued in No Mans Land (AWM: folder 10, part 11,
vol. 111, July, 1918), depicted a routine referred to as Tummy and
Tub. Tub involved the mens communal cleansing of nits (chats) in
a big bath before they go out. One of the nine nude bathers in the
middle of the huge water barrel asks: Who says Im chatty? Tummy
shows a French peasant woman who has rustled up the usual menu
for soldierseggs and chips. An Australasian soldier sits at her table,
happily brandishing a knife and fork. Her speech balloon asks Good
Oh, Eh Monsieur?!! He replies Oofs and chips. Tray bon madarm.

Rum and Lime juicesoldiers wanted food to be part of their everyday

story (CUL: Aussie, WRC 464, reel 15, 1918).
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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Food and drink, so essential for physical and mental well-being, was
a regular topic. Both British and French armies operated similar ration
scales, but in practice most complaints arose from supply problems
that rendered ration scales meaningless; thus, bully beef and hard
biscuits became the target of much humour, also reflected in the fact
that in 1917 the War Cabinet received reports that food was one of the
main causes of troop discontent (NAUK: War Cabinet Minute 231, 12
September, 1917, CAB 23/4).

Soldiers believed that the folks back home had the wrong image of
life at the Front, and one motivation for publication was to correct
this. As the second of these two panels suggests, another motivation
was boredom. Not always Hun-Hunting by P. Huthnance shows
What some folks at home imagine their boy to be doing, namely
using his bayonet to rapidly chase a German soldier as shells explode
everywhere in the background. What he probably is doing is reclining
with his pipe, reading a paper, using his kit as an easy chair, inside a
hut (NLA: Aussie, 1918).

Probably the most devastating comment in the hundred or so (largely

Australian) two-panel samples analysed for this paper is on the subject
of war followed by peace, and entitled The Profiteer (NLA: Aussie,
15 June, 1920). The first panel is captioned France 1918 and shows
a war weary soldier walking through mud, burdened with kit, and
surrounded by a barren landscape. In the second panel, the landscape
is also barren, but it is hot and sunny, and captioned Aussie, 1920.
The same man is now a hobo burdened with a backpack of bedding
and carrying a billy-can in his hand, this time sweating, but otherwise
in the same pose as in the first panel.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

13

Collective themes as multi-panel

Christmas Presents, by C.H. Gould (NLA: Aussie, 1918). An Australian

identity emerged through the detailed interaction of text and pictures.
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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Whereas the two-panel cartoon provided a quick, simple narrative of

contrast, longer sequential story lines could add further sophistication.
Works in this second category had more complicated storylines with
several events, episodes, or milestones. Complaints were central to the
genre: these started during initial training, and were not confined to
Australians, or to life at the front.

Sling, the Salisbury Plain camp where reinforcements were trained and
casualties rehabilitated (Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F. CUL: WRB 12, reel 3).

Soldiers at Gallipoli spent the autumn of 1915 digging because they

expected the Turks to soon use heavy artillery, and this would make
Anzac trenches vulnerable. Plate 6 is a complicated illustrative narrative
that tackles the subject of officer privilege with an absurd fantasy
about the logic of dugouts. It was rejected for The Anzac Book. The
first two panels represent realityofficers are about to move into their
new dugout headquarters as comfortable as could be wished for,
when the buildings are suddenly destroyed by Turkish howitzer shells.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

15

Panels 3 and 4 are satirical fantasy. The captions read why not get
some miners and - do the thing properly. The officers speech bubble
indicates that an (impossible) 50 feet down would be a safe place. Both
the original dugout and the imagined one are for the officers, who are
identifiable by their boots and the detail of their uniforms. An officer
is being lowered down the shaft by a private who labours at winding
a windlass.

The cosiest spot on the peninsula by Gunner Blomfield, 1st Battery, New
Zealand Field Artillery was rejected for The Anzac Book (AWM: RC09028
MSS 1316).
Australian Journal of Communication Vol 39 (3) 2012
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The democratic nature of troop publications resulted in a framing

of the lower ranks as victims of hierarchical authority, usually lacking
respect for those above them. The different identities of officers and
men are perfectly illustrated in Huthnances narrative strip entitled
The Sequence of Blame. The identities are indicated by uniform (the
officers wear boots with spurs) and by the anti-hero, Aussie larrikin
image of the ordinary characters. Panel 1 establishes the storyline:
Something went wrong, the C.O. roared at the major, as a nervous,
child-like ordinary soldier catches the conversation while removing
his boots. The buck is then passed down the ranks. The major roars
at the adjutant as two diggers with hands in pockets and cigarettes
in mouths, gossip to each other; from the security of his office, the
adjutant roars at a startled OC company; the OC roars at the C.S.M.
(company sergeant major) as two more ordinary soldiers look on,
dumbfounded; the C.S.M. roars at the platoon sergeant, observed by
a soldier who looks as though he has just emerged from the bush, with
pipe in mouth, trouser braces and axe in hand. Finally, the child-like
soldier from panel 1 reappears in the foreground, this time with his
slouch hat on, but his finger in mouth, looking puzzled as the entire
cast stand behind him: Then it was discovered that an unfortunate
private was the cause of the whole trouble and they all roared at him
(NLA: Aussie, 1918).

Twenty Four Hours Leave Captions in this narrative are derivative of the
oral tradition of Billjim and digger yarns (NLA: Kia-Ora Coo-ee, 1918).
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

17

The first panel (no.1) sets the style of oral narrative as a man starts to
tell a story: Me and Billo put it on the O.C. for leave to go and see a
sick cobber. The men are seen by the military police before they spot
the police, and the soldiers end up in the local jail of Kasr-el-Nil (a
river district of Cairo). They receive seven days confined to barracks
(C.B.)worth itas they could avoid fighting! This strip by David
Barker reveals much, in text and drawings, about the difference in
identity between officers and troops. The abbreviations used for
hierarchy quite naturally assume reader knowledge of ranks (O.C. =
officer commanding; A.P.M. = Assistant Provost Marshallmilitary
police). Similarly, a feather in the hat indicates the Australian flagship
Light Horse Brigade. Despite differences in ranks, there is a note of
shared experience between ranks, indicated by the fact that the officer
administering the punishment is sitting on the by now iconic Fray
Bentos (bully beef) box.
By the summer of 1915 in Gallipoli, 80% of the men had suffered
from dysentery. On the Western Front, soldiers stated that the medical
corps were never seen within 500 yards of the firing line, and referred
to Royal Army Medical Corps as the rob-all-my-comrades brigands
(Fuller, 1990, p. 61). Yet the medics themselves saw things differently,
and articulated this in a somewhat disturbing comic strip with a by-line
drawn by Doc about a character called Pills. Each of the eight panels
is given a time of the day, starting with 9 am, when the corporal is
told (as he is taking a medicine bottle from the shelf) that he is wanted
right away. Righto he answers cooperatively. After a fifteen-minute
walk he meets his first patient, who has cut his finger on a bully beef
tin. By 9.35 am, he is pouring medicines, when he is told that a chap
wants him. He arrives to see a group of officers playing cards, and one
tells him I want to see the dentist tomorrow. A dialogue balloon of
question and exclamation marks indicates that he is unpleased and
swearing to himself in frustration. By 10 am, he is administering a
syringe to another patient when a man runs in to tell him: Shake it up,
Doc! Youre wanted at once. The medical orderly sends the contents of
the syringe flying everywhere while he swears again. By the final panel,
at 10.15 am, he has turned neurotically insane, and is seen running
towards his next destination, brandishing an axe, and foaming at the
mouth, with a saw and two bottles under his arm (NLA: Aussie, 1918).
A similar fast-changing reaction is recorded in a a Ne Fait Rien story,
dated 18 September 1918, about the authors response to news of
returning home. C.H. Gould starts off by wishing that he had never
signed up, but when he receives his letter about leaving the Western
Front to go home, he excitedly shakes hands in a farewell with his
superior, telling him : ooray! Best bon war Ive ever seen.
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a Ne Fait Rien 18 Sept.1918. (AWM: folder 44).

Conclusions

Contributions towards the comic-strip format varied in style and

purpose. Sequential panels with their unique interaction between
illustration and text need to be recognised as a form of self-publishing
and as an early form of citizen visual journalism that can be evidenced
trans-nationally. Themes tended to be common to more than one
nationality and front, with uniforms and backdrops changing, but
linguistic differences emerge from the colloquial dialogue that is also
a characteristic of comic strips. This form of popular culture reveals
collective, amateur self-expression, and the ephemeral spontaneity
of illustrative narratives is comparable to todays mobile-phone- and
video-based citizen journalism.
Multi-panel comic narratives in Australian First World War...

19

The emphasis on gossip and comment is evocative of later mass media

tabloid approaches, but in the Australian case it also owes much to
the oral tradition of Digger yarns and storytelling. One difference for
Australians is that troop publications can be contextualised as part of
a longer running cultural developmentthe invention, re-invention,
and ongoing shaping of the Digger and Anzac legends as part of
documented scholarship on Australasian identity (Seal, 1990, 2004,
2005; White, 1981). After the war, some newspapers such as the
Aussie continued as the voice of the returning serviceman, reproducing
original cartoons and comic panels as a means of retaining memories.
The Anzac Book was similarly presentedas a souvenirby projecting
the record to a wider audience.
As a form of social observation, narrative humour relies on recognising
absurdity and incongruity in familiar situations. Trench publications
were primarily a source of entertainment; the episodes and thoughts
that were visualised inevitably portray everyday situations rather than
battle, death, or military observations on the progress and strategy
of the War. The contribution of works here to the history of citizen
visual journalism is one of immediate social observation through
the articulation of sentiment. These works provide instant narrative
reactions of ordinary people (such as those in Plate 8) through the
interconnection of dialogue, captions, and illustrations, offering
snapshots that reveal shared feelings and emotions as wartime
experiences.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the AHRC for their generous funding and
encouragement, and Macquarie University and Wolfson College
Cambridge for their continuing support. Also, we would like to thank
Nicholas Schmidt of the Australian War Memorial for his advice and
photography.

Notes
1. Of the many memoirs and histories, see Blunden (1928), and the
works of Lyn MacDonald that draw on accounts of survivors. For
historiography of Gallipoli, see Macleod (2004).
2. The only other event in modern history that prompted a similar selfpublishing explosion was the French Revolution, when the number
of publications mushroomed to 2000 from only one official journal
during the Ancien Regime (Chapman, 2005, pp. 1522; 2008, pp.
1312).
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3. For a general survey, see Ryan (1979), although he does not mention
examples of trench publications.
4. For a detailed assessment of Beans Gallipoli Diary, see Fewster
(1983). Bean was also involved in The Rising Sun, and this paper was
later incorporated into The Aussie.
5. According to Broadbent (2009, pp. 1601) The hyperbole about
courage and dash that surrounds the Anzac Legend is Ashmead
Bartletts. The more human features of the imagethe mateship,
the robust vigour, and the ability to endure and put a cheerful face
on adversitycan be traced to Bean. See also Fewster (1982).
6. Bean later published some of his rejections for The Anzac Book in
The Rising Sun (Seal, 2005, pp. 5161). Rejected contributions have
been published subsequently in a recent edition of The Anzac Book
(2010).
7. Wise notes that a single panel cartoon produced by the British
soldier-cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather was reproduced to depict an
Australian soldier at Gallipoli by changing the uniform and the
backdropeverything else remained the same (Wise, 2007, pp.
2378).

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